this is gps, the global public square. >> welcome to those of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. today on the show, the impeachment inquiry. >> i want no quid pro quo. >> if president trump is impeached, he'll be the third president in history to feet that fate, after johnson and clinton. this is an historic moment, so how do historian's look at it? i'll talk to our guests. then donald trump claims we are winning the trade war with china. >> thanks to my tariffs, we are taking in billions and billions

from a country that never gave us ten cents, china. >> we are losing a more important battle. the education race in the east. what can we learn? i'll bring you the answers. and why did this ship end up crashing into rocks in broad daylight? why was this oscar announcement so screwed up? looking at how things can go very wrong very quickly and how we can avoid catastrophe. first, here is my take. thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. it is a secular celebration in america. as an immigrant, i have much to be thankful for. plus i'm an optimist who tends to see the story of this country

as making progress over the long run. lately, it has been tough to maintain that sunny outlook. the constitution republic and democratic character seem to be in danger of the breakdown. listen to the language of the president. >> our radical democrat opponents are driven by hatred prejudice and rage. they want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it. >> words like treason and coup are casually tossed around. some imagine the impeachment inquiry would produce evidence and facts that would cut through the spin and fantasies, but in fact the opposite has happened. can america survive through such poisonous times? in the past it has, it has survived the battles between slave owners and abolitionists. neat nam and watergate. could this time be different?

alas, yes, in a thought provoking essay called, "america ends." undergoing a transition no stable democracy has experienced. its historically dominant group is on its way to becoming a political minority and its minority groups are asserting their co-equal rights and interests. he acknowledges there have been smaller moments before, but those have been wrenching, often stretching america to the breaking point. it took a civil war to end slavery and then almost 100 years of struggle to end jim crow. the united states passed the chinese exclusion act, and in turn 120,000 japanese americans before opening its gates to immigrants from all over the world. coupled in demographics is one more worrying trend about the character, the ever-expanding

power of the presidency. whatever you think of the charges against donald trump on russia or ukraine, his non-cooperation with congress in the impeachment inquiry should trouble you deeply. if congress cannot exercise it's core constitutional oversight capacity, the presidency will have become an elected dictatorship. we've been going down this road for a while. authors have written about the imperial presidency in 1973. the legislation and culture after watergate led many to believe that matters were under control. in fact, in a 2006 reissue of the took t presidency has become stronger than ever. the furor after 9/11, the president gained the ability to snoop on private americans, use military force at whim, torture prisoners and detain people indefinitely. the president of the united

states can now order the execution of american citizens who are deemed by him to be terrorists without due process. attorney general bill barr believes despite all this history, that the great problem in america is the presidency is too weak. he has enabled a policy of stonewalling and silence, in which top administration officials behave almost as if congress does not exist. people often ask what the founders would think of america today. it seems to me that the greatest shock to them would be the incredible growth of presidential power. profound demographic change, fierce political backlash and a presidency that refuses to be checked. my optimism is wearing thin this thanksgiving. for more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column this week. and let's get started.

extraordinary is an overused word in the modern vernacular, but i don't think it's hyperbole to say we are living in extraordinary times in the united states and i often wonder how historians 20 or 30 or 50 years from now will view this moment. that's unknowable for now, but what is knowable is how historians are looking at it. i have doris concerns goodwin. her latest book is "leadership in turbulent times". she has a master class available in history and leadership. rick perilstein is a historian of the conservative movement and a chronic cool of the presidency and res ignition of richard nixon. and we have the billionaire businessman, the co-founder of the carlisle group but one of his great passions is american history and he's just published

a book called "the american story, conversations with master historians". before we begin, david, i want you to explain what your book is and how it really came out of an act of educating american congressmen about the country's history. >> i have a concern that people don't know as much about our history as they should. recently in a survey, three-quarters of americans could not name the three branches of government and only one-third could name a branch of government. we don't teach history as much as we used to or civics. and members of congress are in the same category. they know more than the average citizen and they should know more than they probably do. so i started a series at the library of congress to interview our historians. i've now done about 50 of them and i've taken about 18 of them and put them in a book and distilled the interviews a bit, edited, and it's designed to give people a look at american history through the eyes of the greatest historians we have talking about washington, adams,

fdr is so forth. >> let's get to the substance. you wrote this great book about the end of the nixon presidency, "invisible bridge" and you point out when we think about the impeachment hearings, there was a lot more going on with nixon than just the impeachment hearings. describe the kind of breadth of the investigation. >> well, by the time nixon resigned, what the public referred to when they said watergate were things that had gone back to the beginning of his presidency. it was 1969 when he did his own phone tappings. he was so terrified about leaks. a what the investigation found out was he approved a memo recommending break-ins of his opponents. watergate was followed by payoffs with secret funds to the burglars, but even as they were investigating all of this, they

would turn over rocks and turn over rocks and each rock would reveal, you know, another thing. nixon using public funds for his private residences. >> and all of this was discovered through not just one impeachment inquiry? >> it was of course the media and her sh and bernstein. but also in 1973, the senate voted with only two votes in opposition to have a special committee that would investigate nixon and have public televised hearings. and they were galvanizing. and the reason two people voted against it is they were a ploovd at a time when no one could have imagined that the white house was involved. >> you lived through that period and what is your sense when you look at that impeachment and this one? what are the differences? >> i think the main difference when you think about it is that when those impeachment hearings started, only 19% of the country thought he should be impeached. and then you watched that

process unfold, and they educated public sentiment, both the events and the hearings and the discoveries. by the end, 57% thought he should be impeached. and then that great moment that you know so well about, you both do, when finally the day before he resigns, barry gold water and a couple of other republicans come to tell him what the situation is. and he's wondering can i get 34, maybe he'll get 20. and goldwater says there's only four and i'm not one of them. >> it wasn't a small compartmentized thing. now they're going after one bad thing he did. >> but the key at that time i think was that the republicans decided in the house judiciary committee to vote in favor of an impeachment article. and right now it seems as if it's very split by party lines. so nixon was unable to hold the republican party in the house and ultimately unable to do so in the senate. today it appears that the president is able to hold his republican party. >> and it shows that the big

challenge, i think, is that they have to educate public sentiment about what is an abuse of power, what does it mean to violate the rule of law, what is bribery and an impeachable oh phones. why are we impeaching him now? that's what lincoln said, with public sentiment, anything is possible. without it, nothing is. and that country was educated under nixon and it came out fine in the end. ford said our national nightmare is over. >> presumably the opiniorepubli are doing this is because they recognize that trump was the base of the party and the entire party with him, that if they were to break with trump, they would lose their primaries and elections. so is it that the country is so much more polarized that there's simply no prospect of the 50/50 -- >> i think polarization is a poor metaphor. the democratic party loves

bipartisanship. we nominate a guy who says there is no red america, there is no blue america. our guy in 1988 who says this election is not about ideology. but in these four books i've written, i'm writing about the surrender of a party to almost au authoritarianism. the fact is we're at a point now, which basically the things that would get a republican -- there was something called the john burke society. you guys will all remember that. and they said eisenhower is a communist conspiracy. back in the early '60s, you had to disavow the john burke society in order to be taken seriously in the party. now people are saying things like that. the idea that ukraine sabotaged the election. >> the congress is a pretty good barometer. if the american people were dead set against president trump,

congress would reflect that. right now the republican party is intensely supporting him and if that changes, it would be different. but right now i think president trump has a much better hold on the party than nixon did. >> and the media is so different. you're hearing two different narratives now. when you saw the meetings last week, there was one narrative on msnbc about people who had come forward to tell the truth and then you listen to the other channels, maybe perhaps fox, and you'll hear a different narrative. so it's much harder to bring a consensus in the country when you've got the split in the cable networks. >> 10% of the congress, you know, represents 75% of -- 75% of the congress can represent 10% of the public. >> stay with me. when we come back, i'll ask the panel what history tells us about the other side of the aisle, the democrats and their multitude of presidential

wannabes. >> tech: so you think this chip is nothing to worry about? well at safelite, we know sooner or later every chip will crack. these friends were on a trip when their windshield got chipped. so they scheduled at safelite.com. they didn't have to change their plans or worry about a thing. i'll see you all in a little bit. and i fixed it right away with a strong repair they can trust. plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. >> customer: really?! >> tech: being there whenever you need us that's another safelite advantage. >> singers: safelite repair, safelite replace.

i'm part of a community of problem solvers. we make ideas grow. from an everyday solution... to one that can take on a bigger challenge. we are solving problems that improve lives. to one that can take on a bigger challenge. mucinex cold & flu all-in-one. fights... oh no. no-no-no. did you really need the caps lock? mucinex cold and flu all-in-one.

makes my butt look good fancy but not too fancy no matter why you love your clothes, care for them with woolite. woolite keeps clothing looking like new and cleans with just twelve ingredients versus the leading detergent's twenty-four. woolite. less ingredients. more love.

and we are back. you're a democrat. >> i'm registered as an independent. >> you wosrked for jimmy carter. i want to ask you looking at it as a historian. when the democrats nominate somebody who is a kind of fresh face from the outside who kind of captures the imagination of the country, carter, clinton,

obama, they win. when they nominate the kind of stalward standard carrier of the party, they don't do so well. >> if you look at history it tells you what likely will happen in the future. so if you look at history here, it looks as if a fresh face is more likely to win a general election. but the party is obviously -- i would say pleased with some of the people that have been around for a while. biden is clearly the front-runner i would say right now. and remember, when people vote, they don't look at history patterns as much as what they feel today. so i can't say it's easy to pick who is going to be the nominee. there are many candidates there. right now, four years ago, you wouldn't have predicted probably that president trump would become president. it's just too early to say. if you go back the last ten presidential elections, a year in advance of the election, i don't think you would have predicted the person who would

have won the elections. you wouldn't have predicted barack obama a year in advance. >> because they were all trailing. >> and barack obama, when he got the nomination he was trailing behind hillary clinton the first time way behind before the iowa caucus obviously happened and then he won the iowa caucus and went on to win the nomination. my point is a year in advance is too early to say. >> when you look at the primaries, people say so many people, bloomberg, is this more cr cray yotic? >> the theserrible thing i woul admit, i wish we could go back to old convention center. on september, labor day, it would begin and we would have lives all between the elections. of course it was teddy roosevelt when wanted it in order to beat taft. "the new york times" printed an editorial because the campaign against teddy and taft, the first primary system was so awful that "the new york times"

said this is the first presidential primary. we hope it's the last. foreigne foreigners must be laughing at us. there is a problem with the way it's set up. it's democratic to have more people vote. but how are we judging the candidates in these primaries, how they do in a debate, who squings who. that's nuts, they're not going to be doing that when they're president. how much money have they raised. we should be looking at what kind of leaders they've been in the past. they've all come from somewhere. we don't need a magazine article. we should be talking constantly what kind of team do they have around them. do they share credit, shoulder blame, do they have humility, do they have resilience, are they accessible, what is their ambition like? we should know these things. that's what we should be asking them in the debates. have you failed. one question was asked, but i would love to see those leadership things as an index for judging them. >> rick, let me ask you about

the question of how to win for a democrat. so there are essentially two theories. one is, you need to bring out the base. all those people who voted for obama but didn't vote for hillary. the other is you need to get to all the persuadable people in the middle in these states. it feels like those are -- obviously, ideally you would do both. elizabeth warren brings out the base and joe biden reaches the people in the middle. what does history tell you is the way to go? >> i think the answer is political science, actually, which it's very clear that there are very few people who are persuadable. we have people that are called patents, but when we drill down and say what do they believe, how do they vote. they tend to vote for one party and call themselves independent because it sounds more independent. or they'll say they're not republicans because here

libertarians. >> it's not a perfect process, but it's a process that i think is the envy of the world in some respects. we actually have a lot of votes and a lot of primaries and caucuses, and i think a lot of people would like to have a vote and vote many different times. so i don't think it's a perfect system. but for right now i think it's as good a system as we can probably get. >> let me ask you as a billionaire, what do you think of elizabeth warren's desire to tax the hell out of you? >> well, i don't make the laws. whatever the laws are, i'm going to comply with. so i pay whatever taxes i'm supposed to pay and i pay a lot of taxes and i'm happy to do so as an american who came from modest circumstances. my parents didn't graduate from high school or college and i got lucky in the business world so i'm happy to pay the taxes. if the ways and means committee which initiates legislation and the finance committee goes along with it, if they pass a bill, i'll comply with it. i don't know that there's a lot of support, but if the law is the law, i'll comply with it, of course. >> on that note, thank you all

for a very interesting conversation. next on gps, many on wall street would have you believe that elizabeth warren is cut from the same cloth as karl marks. in a moment i will introduce you to a politician who would like to do something that would be considered socialism. it's not bernie sanders. how did you find great-grandma's recipe? we're related to them? we're portuguese? i thought we were hungarian? grandpa, can you tell me the story again? behind every question is a story waiting to be discovered. backseat chefs peer inside your oven behind every question but you've cleaned off all the baked-on business from meals past with easy off so, the only thing they see is that beautiful bird

go ahead, let 'em judge your cold's gonna make you a zombie tomorrow. wrong. new mucinex nightshift fights my cold symptoms so i can sleep great and wake up human. don't eat me i taste terrible. fight your worst symptoms so you can sleep great and wake up human. new mucinex nightshift cold and flu. most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. (woman) but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. (man) we weave security into their business. virtualize their operations. (woman) and build ai customer experiences. we also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. like 5g. almost all the fortune 500 partner with us. (woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business ready. ♪ of millions of americans during the recession. so, my wife kat and i took action. we started a non-profit community bank with a simple theory -

give people a fair deal and real economic power. invest in the community, in businesses owned by women and people of color, in affordable housing. the difference between words and actions matters. that's a lesson politicians in washington could use right now. i'm tom steyer, and i approve this message. ♪ ♪ applebee's new sizzlin' entrées. now starting at $9.99. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood.

that's why xfinity mobile lets you design your own data. you can share 1, 3, or 10 gigs of data between lines, mix in lines of unlimited, and switch it up at any time. all with millions of secure wifi hotspots and the best lte everywhere else. it's a different kind of wireless network, designed to save you money. switch and save up to $400 a year. and now get $250 off google pixel 4 during xfinity mobile beyond black friday. that's simple. easy. awesome. click, call or visit a store today.

>> now for our what in the world segment. people are worried that elizabeth warren will alter america's free market. for all the fears about her, warren is not really a socialist, not in the sense the word is usually used. but there is a politician face g

national elections who is a self-dedescribed socialist. i'm not talking about bernie sanders. this one is across the bond. it's jeremy corbyn, whose labor party has released a report that marks the party's biggest shift to the left in a generation. a labor government would drive taxes up on corporations and the rich to pay for a significant increase in day-to-day public spending. public investment would rice from 2.6 to 4.5%, on par with sweden's. corbyn wants to go to a nationalization drive. he would reverse decades of privatization and bring the railways, water, energy supplies and the royal under direct government ownership and control. now the record of government-run industries has been pretty bad in most countries, including brittain where it was tried for decades after 1945.

corbyn wants to bring part of the british telecom so that they could roll out high speed internet for every citizen. boris johnson calls this a crazed communist scheme. these are the kinds of promises that often play well with many voters. however, labor is polling behind the conservative party. still, british industry leaders are panicking. one telecom executive said that corbyn's plan which was announced was lunacy. the report said others have already started freezing investment in broadband networks. companies would likely be compensated for their assets at far below market rates. labor is planning a national investment bank, a four-day work work and taking action toward ending the gender pay gap. if fully implemented, the plans

could be fairly described as democratic socialism. last month boris johnson wrote in the telegraph that corbyn's labor party was going after the wealthy, a tasteless and wildly inappropriate analogy. but in september, ft wrote that something in congress appeared to be happening. markets appeared to be warming to the idea of the labor government. that is because there is something that corbyn has to offer business. he was ruled out a no-deal brexit and said he would offer voters a second referendum. think of the consequences of boris johnson's hard brexit. according to the economist, estimates suggest that it would think incomes by 6% in the long run. a no-deal would be a bigger cats free with a higher economic toll and food and medicine shortages. if one of these two leading parties ends up forming the next government, a fair assumption, then the choice appears to be

between a government that would lurch brittain to the hard left, or one that will deliver a hard brexit. here's hoping that american voters will have a better choice in 2020. next on gps, speaking of 2020, democratic presidential candidates continue to lay out their plans for fixing american education. but my next guest says we should actually look across the pacific for solutions. on what the u.s. can learn from asian education when they come back. il up our system. but dad, rid-x contains billions of enzymes proven to break down even paper to keep your whole septic system healthy. for paper, grease or waste breakdown. use rid-x.

itintroducing the new braava jet m6 robot mop. with an adjustable precision jet spray and advanced pad system braava jet breaks up messes and gets deep in corners. braava jet. only from irobot. [airport pa]"all flights have been delayed." t-mobile makes the holidays easier... ...like this. because right now when you buy one of the latest samsung phones you get one free. on that. so you can post this... ...score this... ...be there like this... ...and share all of this... ...with that. so do this, on that, with us. now, buy a samsung galaxy s10 or note 10 and get one free.

the doctor's office might mejust for a shot.o but why go back there when you can stay home with neulasta® onpro? strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection. in a key study neulasta® reduced the risk of infection from 17% to 1% a 94% decrease. neulasta® onpro is designed to deliver neulasta® the day after chemo and is used by most patients today. neulasta® is for certain cancer patients receiving strong chemotherapy. do not take neulasta® if you're allergic to it or neupogen (filgrastim). an incomplete dose could increase infection risk. ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems allergic reactions, kidney injuries and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. in patients with sickle cell disorders, serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. the most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. if you'd rather be home ask your doctor about neulasta® onpro. pay no more than $5 per dose with copay card.

plaque psoriasis uncoverth clearer skin that can last. in fact, tremfya® was proven superior to humira® in providing significantly clearer skin. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya®. uncover clearer skin that can last. janssen can help you explore cost support options.

educators around the world have been waiting for three years and they will be able to exhale on tuesday. that's when the latest round of scores come out, the global tests of 15 years olds. they tell countries where their kids rank against others. and asian nations have consistently outranked the united states in secondary education. math, science and reading. so what is the special sauce, what can they learn from nations that consistently excel in education? well, terry knows first hand. she's an american, but when work brought her family to tokyo, hong kong and shanghai, she put the kids in local public schools. now they are back in new york and she's written a terrific book about what she learned from watching her kids learn. the book is called "world class,

one mother's journey halfway around the globe in search for the best education for her children". the schools in hong kong and shanghai, why are they teaching so well. >> i would say the ex specs tagz is so much higher. learning is challenging, but through overcoming those challenges, you gain that resiliency and the motivation to continue to learn and push yourself. so that's a very big difference. >> you also talk about a really important thing, again these are public schools. and you came back to the states and you were so struck by the wide disparities in funding, but, you know, the -- >> absolutely. >> suburban schools might do very well, but the places where the poorest kids are which need more attention, actually get less funding here, because funding for schools is through property taxes. and you don't see any of that in hong kong, shanghai and japan.

all teachers were paid the same, they all had the same resources. >> they really do anything they can to fight any kind of inequity. so there are examples where in the united states, they want the best teachers, the most experienced teachers, to go to those schools that may be weaker or underperforming, but in effect it's usually the regressive -- the opposite, where well, i have tenure, i'm going to teach fifth grade in this school for the next 10 or 20 years. where i can say one example is in japan, when we were in tokyo, prach for example, teachers are moved around within the district every two, three years basically. so you could go back to school and a teacher is not there and she was moved. so you're not going to have this is a good school, this is a bad school because the teachers are moving around. and there are financial transfers to make sure that the inequity doesn't exist. in the united states on average, only 10% of a school's budget

comes from the federal government. so it's really up to districts and states to stem the inequity. and another thing that they do really well in shanghai, is they have kind of sister programs. so the higher-performing schools take on a lesser-performing school and take over the management to elevate it. >> you also talk about the respect that teachers had in these societies. that's something the government i suppose can't really do. the teachers could be paid more, which i think is one of the tragedies in america. they think we may them well, but we don't. what could one do about that? because there really is a difference, i think. >> so that reverence for teachers is really something that really smacks you kind of in the face when you're in shanghai and japan. and on average again, in japan, for example, there are 200,000 applicants for 38,000 spots to become teachers. and it's as difficult to pass the bar, if not more difficult

in japan, to become a teacher. so the credentialing, the licensing, is really, really difficult. and what you also see is the teachers will do anything to help this next generation of students. so i tell many stories in the book where it will be 7:00 p.m. at night, and whenever the house phone rang we knew it was a teacher who was actually -- i should say calling from the teacher collaboration room that all the teachers went to. because so much of their time isn't spent necessarily in the class room, but it's working together and collaborating through professional development and lesson planning. and in the united states teachers spend 27 hours a week on average in the classroom, where as the average for oecd nations is 19 hours. so that's something that we have to address as well. >> so they're teaching too much and they're not spending enough time getting professionally enriched and developed? >> yes. and the other thing that happens

in shanghai and japan is you have to be recredentialed every five to ten years and that requires hours and hours of professional development, observations, even medical tests. so it's like becoming a doctor or a lawyer where you can't just pass an exam once. you have to keep up your professional development. >> pleasure to have you on. >> thank you so very. next on gps, bad stuff happens to good people. it's just a fact of life. how can we do our best to avoid the pitfalls? the undercover economist was done the digging and he has the answers. back in a moment. robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees and account minimums. so, you can start investing wherever you are - even on the bus. download now and get your first stock on us.

robinhood. my dbut now, i take used tometamucil every day.sh it traps and removes the waste that weighs me down, so i feel lighter. try metamucil, and begin to feel what lighter feels like.

i'm hoping our viewers in the united states don't have any cautionary tales to share after thanksgiving dinner, no fights with crazy uncles or turk keys burst to a crisp. life is filled with cautionary tales, events that were expect to go one way and then swiftly go awrooi. how does this happen. how did this oil banker end up in broad daylight on rocks its officers knew were there? my next guest tells these stories and more in a new podcast. tim hartford is known as the undercover economist.

his new podcast is called, simply enough "cautionary tales". i'm fascinated by the oil tanker one because what you describe is -- why don't you describe what happens. >> it it was 1967. the oil tanker was one of the largest ships in the world. great ship. and its captain took her between just off the southwest tip of great britain. it was about ten miles to get through. but it is narrow for an oil tanker. and as the captain took the ship along this course, little by little small pieces of information came to light that should have made him think, hang on, we need to go a much safer route. some fishing boats appeared. there was a small navigational error. they realized the tanker wasn't quite where they thought. but rather than stop and go around, he kept thinking i can make it, i can make it, and then there was one small final error and there was no margin left and

the ship went onto the rocks and it was an ecological disaster and also the largest insurance claim in history up to that point. >> and the lesson is very interesting, that once you set a course, often what people do is little bits of information that disconfirm your initial strategy, plan, never derail it. you just don't let it get into your head that way. >> accident experts call this plan continuation bias and you see it with airline pilots and in the operating theatre. i see it in my own life. i'm trying to make some complicated set of pickups, the children from their different clubs, and information comes in that should make me think, hang on, this is impossible, i need to call in some help, i need to change the plan. and i don't. and you see it in politics as well. >> brexit seems the most here. >> yes, as a brit, brexit seems to be behind everything at the

moment. but we had a previous prime minister, theresa may, had a plan to deliver brexit and it just became clearer and clearer that that plan wasn't going to work, and yet she found it completely unable -- she found herself completely unable to change what she was doing. just like the oil tanker. >> i think of the iraq war that way. that the plan was set in motion and then all kinds of information comes in, the inspectors come back and say actually we don't find weapons of mass destruction. the turks come back and say you can't go through our country, so what was planned as a two-front invasion, now you have one front that you can't do it. but the plan continues. >> some of these things are catastrophic. but it's a very simple piece of human nature. if the new information is drifting in slowly, it's very hard to have the presence of mind, especially when you're under pressure, to say maybe we need to rethink this from scratch. >> you have another episode,

which is about gallaleo's role. >> the grehe tells a story abou storing columns, how do you store them in the correct way. and he tells a story of a storage mechanism that was supposed to keep the columns safe would break them time after time. they would snap in storage. and the point is here, often when we introduce safety systems, we're also introducing complexity and we're introducing a new way for things to fail. and my favorite example, not a tragic one, slightly amusing, is do you remember when they gave the oscar to "la la land" rather than "moonlight". how did that happen? as a safety measure, they had two copies of every envelope with every award card, and that seemed like a sensible way of being safe. >> with every possible movie

nominated or -- >> no, there were two for best actress and best picture. they were the same. but if we lose one, the best actress nomination, which by the way says emma stone, "la la land", which is the thing that caused the problem, if we lose the card, we have another card, another envelope. but that meant that when emma stone won best actress for her role in "la la land" somebody had to get rid of the duplicate envelope and that ended up in the hands of warren beatty and that's what caused the problem. so if you only had one copy of the envelopes, you would have never had the problem. and the oscars have decided now we're going to have three sets of envelopes. i wonder how that's going to work out. >> is there a larger overall point to the podcast, a kind of lesson? >> well, stories of disaster, stories of mistakes are

interesting and memorable. so i like these stories. but there's always a lesson to learn from mistakes. i would rather learn lessons from other people's mistakes than learn lessons from my own mistakes. so that's >> that is the goal. listen to this podcast oso you can learn from other people's mistakes. tim harford, pleasure to have you on. and we will be back. mucinex cold and flu all-in-one.

wayfair's biggest black fridis now on. ever yes! score unbelievable savings. like living room up to 70% off.

storage solutions from $9.99. and area rugs up to 80% off. plus, tons of limited-time mystery flash deals. and free shipping on everything when you shop from thanksgiving through cyber monday. and we're just getting warmed up. our black friday blowout is happening now through december first. shop the event of the season, only at wayfair.com. makes my butt look good fancy but not too fancy no matter why you love your clothes, care for them with woolite. woolite keeps clothing looking like new and cleans with just twelve ingredients versus the leading detergent's twenty-four. woolite. less ingredients. more love.

whether you're out or here on a wifi hotspot. xfinity mobile has more coverage to keep you connected to what matters most. that's because it's the only wireless network that automatically connects you to millions of secure wifi hotspots and the best lte everywhere else. and now get $250 off when you buy a new samsung phone during xfinity mobile beyond black friday. plus, you can save up to $400 a year. click, call or visit a store today.

tomorrow the supreme court is set to review its first case in around a decade that is centered around the right to bear arms. that brings me to my question this week. according to an august poll from quinnipiac, which of the following gun policies is supported by over 50% of american voters? universal background checks, red flag laws, requiring a license to purchase a gun, banning assault weapons. stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. my book of the week is david rubenstein's "the american story." as you heard earlier, rubenstein has interviewed some of america's greatest historians and put the conversations

together in this book. it is superbly done, making for a rich, wide-ranging discussion of american history. but because of the format a very engaging one that is very easy to read and reread. the answer to my "gps" challenge this week is all of the above. in fact, all these policy proposals have support from between 60% and 93% of american voters. over 90% of americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers, including nearly 90% of republicans and 93% of gun owners. 80% support a red flag law, allowing judges to revoke guns from individuals deemed at risk. and 82% are in favor of requiring individuals to obtain a license before owning a gun. and this support is not new. quinnipiac's report suggests that the majority of americans have favored decisive policy changes for several years. so why has progress been so

slow? the answer can be reduced to the tyranny of the minority, as congressional resign vote in line with the interests of the few rather than the many. but it's worth noting that americans have not gone unheard. earlier this year two major retailers cracked down on accessibility to weapons and ammunition. and courts from california to massachusetts have upheld assault weapons bans. reaching a resolution on effective gun policies might prove to be one of the greatest challenges of this era in american history. it's a responsibility that rests both with the private and the public sphere. it would be our collective effort that lands us on the right side of history. thanks to all of you for being part of our program this week. i will see you next week. we just passed the one year anniversary of our 5g launch, so let's think about it... we were the first in the world to launch 5g mobile. we flipped the switch on 14 nfl stadiums and with 5g ultra wideband, we hit over 2 gigabits per second.

and we're gonna be in 30 cities by the end of this year. so thank you all. ♪ backseat chefs peer inside your oven but you've cleaned off all the baked-on business from meals past with easy off so, the only thing they see is that beautiful bird go ahead, let 'em judge

(loud fan noise) (children playing) ♪ (music building) experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. ♪ ♪ applebee's new sizzlin' entrées. now starting at $9.99. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood.

your cold's gonna make you a zombie tomorrow. wrong. new mucinex nightshift fights my cold symptoms so i can sleep great and wake up human. don't eat me i taste terrible. fight your worst symptoms so you can sleep great and wake up human. new mucinex nightshift cold and flu. >> tech: don't wait for a chip like this to crack your whole windshield. with safelite's exclusive resin, you get a strong repair that you can trust. plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. >> customer: really?! >> singers: safelite repair, safelite replace.

happening now in the newsroom, deadly weather marches across the u.s. on the busiest travel day of the year. >> we knew if we got stranded and had to spend the night on the side of the road we kind of prepared for that. >> in south dakota nine people killed when their small plane goes down in blizzard-like conditions. gusty winds, heavy snow and rain, forcing water rescues and shutting down freeways. "cnn newsroom" starts now. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. hello, everyone. and thank you so much for joining me this sunday. i'm fredricka whitfie